YAHOO! NEWS – Melinda Gates met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alongside her husband Bill in New York City and soon after said she was furious at the relationship between the two men, according to people familiar with the situation.
The previously unreported meeting occurred at Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion in September 2013, on the same day the couple accepted the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award at the Pierre Hotel and were photographed alongside then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
The meeting would prove a turning point for Gates’ relationship with Epstein, the people familiar with the matter say, as Melinda told friends after the encounter how uncomfortable she was in the company of the wealthy sex offender and how she wanted nothing to do with him.
Gates’ friendship with Epstein—who for years was accused of molesting scores of underage girls—still haunts Melinda, according to friends of the couple who spoke to The Daily Beast this week in light of the pair’s divorce announcement, which had been weeks in the making.
The Daily Beast has learned that financial and public relations specialists had been feverishly working on details of the pair’s split for weeks before the couple announced their divorce on Monday.
A representative for Bill and Melinda Gates did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The ties between Gates and Epstein ran much deeper than the tech mogul first admitted.
As The New York Times reported, starting in 2011, Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions.
This was three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in Florida; by then, accusations that Epstein exploited girls and young women were widely reported in the press … Click here to read more.
